by Dennis P. Rosenbaum, Ph.D. Professor and Head
and Gordon S. Hanson, Ph.D. Research Associate
Department of Criminal Justice and
Center for Research in Law and Justice
University of Illinois at Chicago
April 6, 1998

This manuscript is under review for publication and should not be quoted without the
permission of the senior author. This research was supported by a grant from the Illinois
State Police. Points of view expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent those of the funding agency. Inquires about this research should be addressed to
Dr. Dennis P. Rosenbaurn, Professor and Head, Department of Criminal Justice, University
of Illinois at Chicago. 1007 W. Harrison, Chicago, IL 60607.

ABSTRACT

A randomized longitudinal field experiment was conducted to estimate the short- and
long-term effects of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (D.A.R.E.) on
students attitudes, beliefs, social skills, and drug use behaviors. Students from
urban, suburban, and rural schools (N=1798) were followed for more than six years, with
surveys administered each year horn 6th through 12th grades. Teachers were also surveyed
annually to measure students cumulative exposure to supplemental (post-D.A.R.E.)
drug education. Multi-level analyses (random-effects ordinal regression) were conducted on
seven waves of post-treatment data. The results indicate that D.A.R.E. had no long-term
effects on a wide range of drug use measures, nor did it show a lasting impact on
hypothesized mediating variables, with one exception. Previously documented short-terms
effects had dissipated by the conclusion of the study. D.A.R.E., although ineffective by
itself over the long haul, appears to inoculate students against the apparent negative
aspects of supplemental drug education. Some D.A.R.E.-by-Community interactions were
observed: urban and rural communities showed some benefits, while suburban areas
experienced small adverse effects from participation.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is the nations most popular
school-based drug education program it is administered in approximately 70% of the
nations school districts, reaching 25 million students in 1996, and has been adopted
in 44 foreign countries (Law Enforcement News 1996). Its effectiveness in combating drug
usage, however, has been a matter of bitter controversy, and this debate is taking place
in the context of rising drug use among our nations youth. After experiencing large
declines in drug use in the 1980s, the national trend began to reverse in the early 1990s:
the percentage of high school seniors who reported using illegal drugs "during the
past year" increased from 22 percent in 1992 to 35 percent in 1995  a 59
percent increase (Johnston et al. 1996). Marijuana is one drug where dramatic increases
were observed. The number of eighth graders who reported using marijuana during their
lifetime jumped from 10.2 percent in 1991 to 19.9 percent in 1995  a 92 percent
increase. Reports from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (1997) reflect a growing
concern about recent trends in drug-use attitudes and behaviors among Americas
youth, and call upon the nation to act swiftly to prevent a future drug epidemic.

This growing drug problem has caused a flurry of media coverage and political finger
pointing, a11 leading to closer scrutiny of our nations efforts to control and
prevent drug abuse. The spotlight has been especially strong on Americas most
popular and visible program-D.A.R.E. Whether or not D.A.R.E. has been an effective
preventive program has been the subject of considerable debate and research. The
publication of a national study that questioned the effectiveness of D.A.R.E. in
preventing drug use (Ringwalt et al. 1994) opened the door to an avalanche of criticism in
the popular press. A Washington Times article in 1996 declared that -D.A.R.E.s
success...is a political illusion. based on massive publicity efforts and a contempt for
results" (Bovard 1996).1 A
prominent police chief characterized D.A.R.E. as "enormously popular" yet an
"enormous failure," and hence, decided to drop the program because "it does
not work" (NBC Dateline 1997). Of course, the problem of demonstrating effectiveness
in drug prevention is not unique to D.A.R.E. Several literature reviews and meta-analyses
of school-based drug prevention programs have concluded that most are ineffective in
preventing drug use (see Battjes 1985; Bangert-Drowns 1988; Botvin 1990; Bruvold and
Rundall 1988; Ennett et al. 1994; Hansen 1990; Ringwalt et al 1994; Tobler 1986).

The latest pressure on school-based drug education programs comes from federal
legislation. Congress enacted the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act in 1987 (and many
subsequent amendments) to beef-up our nations drug education and prevention
programs. Effective July 1, ) 998, local school districts will be expected, for the first
time, to provide evidence of program effectiveness in order to receive federal Title IV
funds. Funding is widely available for "research-based" strategies that are
consistent with the new "Principles of Effectiveness." One of the core
principals is that "..grant recipients shall...select and implement programs that
have demonstrated that they can be effective in preventing or reducing drug use, violence,
or disruptive behavior." 2 The
new SDFSCA language will force many states, school districts, and schools to give more
attention to drug education goals, processes, and evaluation results. If proposed
school-based programs are taken at face value, their main goal is clear  to prevent
drug use among the target population. Whether programs can achieve this goal is an
empirical question that should answered, in part, through rigorous evaluation research.

The present article reports on a comprehensive longitudinal evaluation of D.A.R.E. that
occurred between 1989 and 1996 in the State of Illinois. This paper includes the anal
analyses of the full data set collected as part of the Illinois D.A.R.E. study, which
tracked students ham 5th and 6th grades through their junior and senior years of
high school.

The D.A.R.E. Program

D.A.R.E. is a series of school-based drug and violence prevention programs for kids in
Kindergarten through 12th grade. It is a cooperative venture between law enforcement
agencies, schools, and the local community, and it involves the use of trained, uniformed
police officers in the classroom to teach a carefully planned drug prevention curriculum.
Created in 1983 as a collaborative venture between the Los Angeles Police Department and
the Los Angeles United School District, D.A.R.E. has expanded to become the largest drug
education initiative in the world. The core D.A.R.E. curriculum, which is the subject of
this research, focuses on children in their last year of elementary school (5th or 6th
grade). It is based on the assumption that students at this age are the most receptive to
anti-drug messages as they approach the age of drug experimentation.

Theoretical Framework

Evaluations of D.A.R.E.s effectiveness as a public policy can also be viewed as a
test of its theoretical underpinnings. Although some researchers have referred to D.A.R.E.
as "atheoretical" (Winfree, Esbensen, and Osgood 1996), this is far from
accurate. Unlike the earlier generation of drug education programs in the 1970s, D.A.R.E.
is solidly grounded in a body of theory and research that laid the foundation for a second
generation of school-based prevention initiatives. The program is deeply rooted in the
social skills and social influence model of drug education. As Botvin (1990) notes, a
variety of strategies can be characterized as part of this "psychosocial"
approach to drug prevention, but three general categories of programs can be identified:
psychological inoculation, resistance skills training, and personal and social skills
training. D.A.R.E. has elements of each approach in its curriculum.

Botvin compares psychological inoculation to "traditional preventive
medicine" in that individuals are exposed to weak doses of "infection" so
that "anti-bodies" may be developed. (D.A.R.E.s "vaccine" takes
the form of simulated temptations and pressures to use drugs). The resistance skills
training approach places emphasis on teaching specific skills for evading or resisting
these "negative social influences," including subtle media influences (D.A.R.E.
students engage in role playing scenarios to resist peer offers of drug use). The personal
and social skills training approach is not problem-specific, but more broadly oriented to
the "acquisition of generic personal and social skills." These will have the
incidental effect of preventing the development of socially learned behaviors and
attitudes that are believed to be associated with substance use. Recent applications of
the personal and social skills approach were modeled after earlier interventions shown to
be effective in preventing cigarette smoking (Flay et al 1983). Some successful
applications of this model to drug abuse have been reported in the literature (Botvin
1990; Clayton et al 1991; Flay 1985; Hansen 1992; Tobler 1986). Particular attention is
given to helping youth develop the social skills to recognize and respond appropriately to
peer pressure.

From the outline of the curriculum (see Table 1), it is apparent that D.A.R.E. also
includes what Botvin (1990) calls "information dissemination" and
"affective education." The former is designed to provide students with enough
knowledge to make informed cost-benefit decisions about drug use (e.g. D.A.R.E. includes
information on drug use, misuse, and consequences; media influences; drug use
alternatives). The latter is similar to the "personal and social skills"
approach, but is focused on a strategy of "social enrichment." D.A.R.E. attempts
to do this by focusing the curriculum on self-esteem building, managing stress.
decision-making, role modeling, and forming support systems. The general hypothesis
implicit in the D.A.R.E. model is that classroom instruction by trained police officers
will result in enhanced self esteem, self-understanding, and assertiveness, a clearer
sense of values, and more responsible decision-making habits, which, in turn, should make
students less vulnerable to the enticements and pressures to use drugs and alcohol.

Previous D.A.R.E. Evaluations

There have been many outcome evaluations of the core D.A.R.E. curriculum, but the
methodological rigor of these assessments vary considerably.3 Most of these studies are of limited scientific value
because of their weak research designs, poor sampling and data collection procedures,
inadequate measurement, and analysis problems. Indeed, the boldest claims of
D.A.R.E.s success are especially vulnerable to such criticism given rampant problems
with internal validity. Most evaluations have been Posttest-Only designs, i.e., the survey
instrument is administered for the first time after students have participated in the
program. Some of these Ex Post Facto evaluations did not include any type of control group
(Aniskiewicz and Wysong 1987; Carstens et al. 1989; Correll 1990; McMahon and Wuorenma
1992; Netburn 1989; Silva 1995). Other studies required the respondents to recall,
retrospectively, whether or not they had received D.A.R.E. (De Jong 1987; Donnermeyer
1998; Dukes et al. 1996; Dukes et al 1997; Fife 1994; Wysong et al. 1994), or they used a
non-equivalent control group (McDonald et al. 1990). Many of these evaluations reached
conclusions that were favorable to D.A.R.E.,4
some on the basis of responses to as few as Ave survey items. The limitations of these
studies are too numerous to be listed here, but clearly, the observed differences may be
the result of self-selection processes (or other pre-existing differences) rather than the
D.A.R.E, program (see Cook and Campbell 1979, 98).5

There have been several D.A.R.E. evaluations that could be classified as
"quasi-experimental." Three used pretest-posttest designs without a control
group (Anonymous 1987; Kethineni et al. 1991; Wiegand 1991), and two of those were also
flawed by survey instruments of the type used in the weakest of the Ex Post Facto
evaluations. A larger number of quasi-experimental evaluations (Reeker et al. 1992;
C1ayton 1987; Etheridge and Hicks 1989; Faine and Bohlander 1988; Faine and Bohlander
1989; Harmon 1993; McCormick and McCormick 1992; Manos et al. 1986; WaIker 1990) have
sufficient scientific integrity to allow estimates of causal effects. These
quasi-experimental studies produced more modest assessments of D.A.R.E. than the weaker
evaluations. They uncovered fairly consistent short-term effects of D.A.R.E. on mediating
variables such as knowledge, attitudes, and social skills (Reeker et al. 1992; Clayton
1987; Faine and Bohlander 1989), but provided little evidence of D.A.R.E.s impact on
drug use behaviors.

The strongest design used to assess D.A.R.E. (with the fewest threats to validity) is
the randomized experiment. Only a fever evaluations have employed experimental designs
with sufficiently large sample sizes and repeated measurement over one or more years
(Clayton et aL 1991a; Clayton et al 1991b; Clayton et aL 1996; Ennett et al 1994;
Lindstrom 1996; Ringwa1t et al. 1990; Ringwalt et al 1991; Rosenbaum et al. 1994). These
studies clearly indicate that D.A.R.E. s positive effects on students tend to dissipate
over time. D.A.R.E. has its largest short-term benefits on students knowledge about
drugs, but statistically significant positive effects have also been observed for social
skills, drug-related attitudes, attitudes toward the police and, less frequently,
self-esteem The effects on drug use behaviors are often small and nonsignificant, although
significant short-term reductions in tobacco use have been noted on more than one occasion
(see meta-analysis by Ennett et al. 1994). The literature of D.A.R.E.s effectiveness
as a drug prevention strategy can be summarized in this way: the stronger the research
design, the less impact researchers have reported on drug use measures.

One of the major limitations of even the best D.A.R.E. evaluations is the short lag
between pre-test and post-tests. Despite the growth in the number of D.A.R.E. studies,
surprisingly few are longitudinal in nature. Most of the stronger studies have examined
program effects immediately after students participated in D.A.R.E. (Becker et al. 1992;
Faine and Bohlander 1988; Harmon 1993; Kethineni et al. 1991; Lindstrom 1996; Manos et al.
1986; Ringwalt et al. 1990; Ringwalt et al. 1991; Wa3cer 1990); a few have looked at
one-year and two-year outcomes (Clayton et aL 1991a; Clayton et al. 1991b; Ennett et al.
1994; Rosenbaum et aL 1994). Given the relatively low base rates for drug use at the ages
of 11 or 12 (when D.A.R.E. is introduced), short time lags between pretest and posttest
measurement can severely restrict the opportunity to detect preventive effects.

Figure 1 captures the essence of this problem: most of the students in the present
study entered high school at wave 5 of the survey. This is the point at which marijuana
use within the past 30 days, for example, begins to rise dramatically, from 2.5% of those
surveyed at wave 4 to more than 25/a at wave 8. D.A.R.E. is typically administered in
sixth grade, well in advance of the steep rise in usage patterns common to most
substances. Thus, a real test of program effectiveness must extend to the age group where
opportunities for drug use are substantial; otherwise there will be a ceiling or upper
limit on the dependent variable.

Prior D.A.R.E. research has virtually ignored the possible effects of supplemental
(i.e. post-D.A.R.E.) drug education during the middle school and high school years.
School-based drug prevention is now mandatory in many states, including Illinois where
this study was conducted. This post-D.A.R.E. instruction could have the effect of
contaminating the control group and confounding the effects of the treatment. Also,
D.A.R.E. may be more or less effective in combination with other drug education
initiatives.

The national study by Silvia and Thorne (1997) found that students were exposed to a
wide range of drug prevention p*rograms at a11 grade levels and that these programs were
delivered inconsistently with wide variability. One state-wide study (Donnermeyer 1998)
reports evidence of a cumulative "booster effect," i.e., students who
participated in multiple drug use prevention activities reported less drug use than
students who reported less exposure to school-based activities. Unfortunately, this study
is a one-shot cross-sectional design6
that suffers from numerous threats to validity, including self-selection at the individual
and school levels. Rather than rely on students recall, which is vulnerable to
considerable memory decay, the present study measures their exposure to supplemental drug
education by interviewing their teachers on an annual basis.

Finally, previous D.A.R.E. evaluations have been plagued by a variety of data analytic
problems, ranging tom improper use of statistical tests to a failure to use covariates or
control variables in the analysis. Even the strongest D.A.R.E. evaluations typically
suffer from the problem of treating individuals as the only unit of analysis when in fact
students are "nested" within specific schools. Statistically-minded critics have
argued that evaluations of school-based programs fail to consider school-level effects in
the analysis of data collected from individual students, a mistake which can lead to
overly-liberal estimates of program effects (Murray and Hannan, 1990). The current study
corrects this problem through the use of multi-level analyses.

Earlier Findings From This Longitudinal Study

In both published and unpublished technical reports, we have reported the effectiveness
of this program at various measurement points. Given that the literature contains only one
other long-term study of D.A.R.E., we believe it is important to summarize the earlier
findings here.

Drug use outcomes.

Immediately after graduation from the D.A.R.E. program, students m the experimental
group reported a significant decline in recent (30-day) use of cigarettes relative to the
control group, but no other changes were observed on a wide range of drug and alcohol
behavior measures. Follow-up studies conducted one, two, and three years after the program
found that D.A.R.E. had no maim effects on any of the drug and alcohol measures.7 After four years, some new drug use
measures were added (considered inappropriate for younger students) and we found that
D.A.R.E. students were significantly older when they "first got drunk" and when
they started  drinking "at least once a month." These delayed-onset
effects, however, were not sustained at the 5-year measurement point. In fact, after five
years, the program was associated with unexpected adverse effects on the primary drug
outcomes; that is, D.A.R.E. students, relative to controls, reported significantly higher
scores on the Total Drug Use and Total Alcohol Use indices, as well as the severity of

Mediating variables.

The presence of D.A.R.E. was associated with a number of hypothesized changes in
attitudes, beliefs, and social skills. At the immediate posttest, significant gains were
observed on seven outcome measures. Students exposed to D.A.R.E. (in comparison to those
in the control group) acre more likely to report negative attitudes toward drugs in
general, negative peer attitudes toward drugs, greater awareness of media influences
concerning beer (and cigarettes), positive changes in self-esteem, greater assertiveness
in social situations, and positive attitudes toward the police. Over time, however, the
effects of D.A.R.E. on attitudinal and psychological variables declined. After one year,
the effects on self-esteem, assertiveness, and attitudes toward the police had dissipated.
Four attitudinal effects continued after two years, but after three years, a11 such
effects were gone with one exception: D.A.R.E. students continued to feel more confident
in their ability to resist peer pressure. After four years, however, all effects relevant
to attitudes, beliefs, and social skills were gone.

Academic and school behavior.

Overall, with a few subgroup exceptions, D.A.R.E. had no effect on self-reported
grades, the number of times students were in trouble with teachers, the number of times
they skipped class, or the frequency of their involvement in delinquent or criminal
activities.

The present article employs the entire 6-year data set to estimate the effects of
D.A.R.E. on students attitudes, beliefs, social skills, and behaviors. To date, the rests
of this longitudinal study suggest that the effects of D.A.R.E. have waned over time. Some
conflicting endings across the years may be due to interactions between program and
maturational effects or may be due to slight improvements in the measurement and analytic
procedures that were introduced by the researchers. Hence, the complete data set is used
here to test the fundamental hypothesis that D.A.R.E. had a significant overall effect on
theory-based and program-based outcomes. This study is not a wave-by-wave analysis (as
previously completed), but rather addresses the basic question of whether, in the Goal
analysis, students who participated in D.A.R.E. are different than students in the control
group ashen all posttest test are analyzed.

METHODOLOGY

The Illinois D.A.R.E. Evaluation was conducted as a randomized field experiment with
one pretest and multiple planned post-tests. The researchers identified 18 pairs of
elementary schools, representative of urban, suburban, and rural areas throughout northern
and central Illinois. Schools were matched in each pair by type, ethnic composition,
number of students with limited English proficiency, and the percent of students from low
income families.8 None of these
schools had previously received D.A.R.E.. For the 12 pairs of schools located in urban and
suburban areas, one school in each pair was randomly assigned to receive D.A.R.E. in the
spring of 199Q; the remainder were placed in the control group. For each of the remaining
six pairs, all m rural communities, a non-random assignment process was necessary due to
logistic considerations that affect the availability of D.A.R.E. officers. The remaining 6
"treatment" schools were selected from rural areas in which D.A.R.E. officers
were already assigned, and 6 more control schools were then selected from nearby counties.
The same matching variables were employed for all schools m the study.

Two types of surveys were administered each year over the six years of data collection:
one for students and one for specific teachers. The purpose of the student survey was to
determine D.A.R.E.s overall effects on students beliefs, attitudes, and
behaviors related to drug use. The student survey data are the p focus of this
longitudinal evaluation. The teacher survey provided supplemental information to assess
the extent of students exposure to post-D.A.R.E. drug prevention programs during
each current academic year.

Recruitment of Schools and Students

Two waves of data (pre-post) were collected from the thirty-six (36) schools m the
first year (1989-1990). In the second year (wave 3, 1991), when students left these
elementary schools and entered middle school, the recruitment process was repeated with
approximately 150 schools. In the third year and beyond, as students continued to move,
transfer, and graduate, the number of schools in the sample fluctuated between 150 and
300. For the 1992-93 academic year, most of the evaluation sample entered high school for
the first time, which required the research team to develop relationships with an entirely
new group of school officials.

Similar to the initial procedure, letters were mailed to all high school
superintendents and principals horn the existing sample of schools, informing them of
students prior participation in the study, seeking their cooperation, requesting
verification of enrollment, and explaining the research procedures. With a11 the
transience in the sample, the research staff was continually making contacts with
representatives from new schools. A financial inducement to participate in the study was
offered to major schools, depending on the number of students participating from their
school and the level of cooperation obtained.

In each school, eligible students were those who had participated in the Wave I survey
in 1990. Passive consent procedures (to obtain parental permission) were approved by the
Institutional Review Board of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Consent forms were
mailed to parents in January of 1990 requesting their childs participation for three
academic years. The letter informed parents of the purpose and content of the project,
stressed the confidentiality of the information to be collected9 and invited parents to return the form in a stamped
envelope if they did not wish their child to participate. During the fall of 1993, a new
consent letter was distributed to parents by mail or through the school, requesting their
consent for the final three years of the study.

Changes in the Evaluation

Two issues emerged in the drug education literature during the course of this
evaluation. First, there was the possible "contaminating" influence of students
being exposed to additional drug education programs in the years following their
participation in D.A.R.E.. Evaluators inevitably face "multiple treatment
interference" (Cook and Campbell 1979) as they attempt to estimate the effects of
D.A.R.E. in the context of subjects exposure to other types of drug education.10 With the rapid growth of drug
education in recent years (including the enactment of legislation requiring that schools
teach drug education), students in both the experimental (D.A.R.E.) group and the control
group were frequently given some additional drug prevention education in subsequent years.
To the extent that these supplemental programs had some favorable impact on students they
may have equalized the two groups on drug-related outcomes, and therefore, biased the
evaluation findings in favor of the nu11 hypothesis (i.e. increase the likelihood of
finding no difference between the experimental and control groups). The reverse outcome is
also possible. Researchers have lamented this problem in the literature, but have rarely
taken steps to measure or control for the effects of this "contamination." In
contrast, the Illinois evaluation gave additional attention to this issue. With additional
survey work, we were able to develop a cumulative index of a students exposure to
supplemental drug education programs over several years. This measure also allowed us to
test the "booster" hypothesis, namely, that additional drug education programs
at the middle and high school levels will boost or reinforce the anti-drug messages and
skills received in the D.A.R.E. program, and that this consistent reinforcement will make
a difference in drug use behaviors during the years of greatest opportunity and pressure.

A second issue concerns the proper approach to data analysis. As noted earlier,
statisticians now recommend that school-level effects be assessed when analyzing data
collected from students representing multiple school settings. There is noir considerable
support for this argument among statisticians and other methodologists, who have developed
new statistical programs for conducting multi-level analysis (e.g. Hedeker and Gibbons
1993). Furthermore, a time-Game that carries well beyond the "nesting" of
students in their original elementary schools, and involves a multi-wave posttest
analysis, is more likely to need some means of controlling for the difference between
students who have been surveyed at all waves, and those who dropped out or were absent at
one or more waves.

Multi-level analysis software such as Hedekers MIXOR and MIXREG have been
developed in part to control for the attrition-related effects of being in the
experimental or control group. Differential attrition may inflate or debate estimates of
program effectiveness. The results of logistic regression analysis indicate that attrition
in the present data set was more likely among: students in the control group, students
from single-parent families, African-Americans, Hispanic, urban students, and males.
However, an Analysis of Variance found no support for the hypothesis that the subjects
experimental condition (0,1) interacted with attrition status (0,1) to influence any of
the four major drug use measures (defined below). More importantly, we used a mixed-level
analysis strategy that controls for violations of the assumption of random variance and
accounts for both individual differences and clustering within schools (see details in
results section). This strategy incorporates the above-named variables as covariates in
the regression equation.

Description of Student Instrument

The effects of D.A.R.E. were assessed with multiple mediating and outcome measures. The
reliability and validity of these measures have been established in previous research and
only slight modifications were made in the present investigation. The following measures
were employed:

Drug Use Behaviors.

Students were asked two sets of questions about their use of various drugs, including
tobacco, alcohol, and other substances. The format for these questions was originally
devised by Moskowitz and his colleagues (1981) for their "Drug and Alcohol
Survey." Students indicated whether they had used these substances in "their
whole life" and "during the last month (30 days)." Students were instructed
not to count the legitimate use of substances, either for religious services (i.e., wine)
or because they were prescribed by a doctor (e.g. Librium, codeine). A composite Alcohol
Use Index was constructed from measures of four different types of alcohol: beer, wine,
wine coolers, and hard liquor. For the 30-day Alcohol Use Index, a value of "1"
indicated that the student had used one of four different types of alcoholic beverage
during the past 30 days; a value of "2" indicated use of two or more. A 30-day
Total Drug Use Index was a combination of students responses to 11 different types
of drugs and alcohol questions. (In addition to the 4 alcohol measures, this index
included smokeless tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, hallucinogens, cocaine, "other
drugs," and "alcohol to get "). For the 30-day Total indices, a value of
"1" indicated that the student had admitted to one or two types of drug use
during the past month, while "2" indicated three or more. Similarly, the
lifetime measures were scored as continuous variables with ranges from 1 to 4 for Alcoho1
Use and 1 to 11 for Total Drug Use.

Onset of alcohol use.

To measure the onset of alcohol use, students were asked to indicate how old they were
when they "first got drunk or very high using alcohol" They also reported how
old they were when they began to drink "at least one drink at )east once a
month."

General attitudes toward drugs.

Students indicated their level of agreement with 8 statements concerning drug use,
which Moskowitz et al (1981) originally developed for the "Drug and Alcohol
Survey." After reversing the scores of positively worded items, a scale was computed
by summing student responses, so that a high score represented a positive attitude toward
drugs (Alpha Range = .78-.89).

Attitudes toward the use of specific drugs.

These questions, also extracted from the "Drug and Alcohol Survey, " assess
specific attitudes toward those substances youth are most likely to use. We grouped
together (i.e., summed) student responses to questions concerning their attitudes toward
beer, wine coolers, and wine. A higher score on this scale indicates a more positive
attitude toward alcohol use (Alpha Range = .82-.90).

Perceived benefits and costs of using drugs.

Students were asked eight questions about their perceptions concerning the benefits,
and five concerning the costs of smoking cigarettes and drinking beer and wine coolers
(Moskowitz et al. 1981). By adding student responses four indices were created to assess
the perceived costs and benefits of using cigarettes and alcohol. A higher score indicates
the undesired outcome of lower perceived costs and higher perceived benefits of drug use
(Alpha Range = .82-.86, .86-.90; .81-.86, .86-.90).

Perceptions of the medias influences on smoking and beer drinking.

These two constructs were measured by totaling student responses to questions about
media influences on beer drinking and cigarette smoking (Bauman 1985). Students indicated
what they thought (1) television and (2) newspapers and magazines made beer drinking and
cigarette smoking "look like." Students who responded that the media made
substance use look like "both a good and a bad thing to do," or "neither a
good nor a bad thing to do, " were scored as a neutral intermediate category between
those who thought it was a "good" and a "bad" thing to do. A higher
score indicates less student recognition of media attempts to make drugs look attractive
(Alpha Range = .79-.82; .79-.85).

Self-esteem.

This construct was measured by adding six items extracted from the Rosenberg (1965)
self-esteem scale, which was developed for use with adolescents. Questions were modified
slightly to make the language more appropriate for contemporary students. A higher score
indicates higher self-esteem (Alpha Range = .80-.88).

Attitudes toward police.

Students rated five items extracted from the "Attitudes Toward Police" scale
developed By Faine and Bohlander (1989). The items were then summed, with a higher score
indicating more favorable attitudes toward the police (Alpha Range = .84-.90).

Peer Resistance Skills.

Students responded to four hypothetical situations in which either their best fiend or
an acquaintance offered them either cigarettes or alcohol (Hansen, 1989). They then rated
their ability to "say no" on a four-point scale ranging from "not sure at
all" to "very sure." The four items were summed, with a higher score
indicating greater confidence in ones ability to resist peer pressure to use substances
(Alpha Range = .86-.90).

School Performance.

Self-reported grades were used as a measure of school performance. The range was
&am 1 to 8, from less than Ds (coded as 1) to mostly As (coded as 8). A
separate component of this study conducted at wave 4 revealed that self-reported grades
were a good reflection of official grades (i.e., the correlation coefficient between the
two was 0.60). · Delinquent and Violent Behavior. A multi-item index was created to
measure students involvement in delinquent behaviors. Several of these items are
derived from the High School Senior Survey conducted by the University of Michigan
(Johnston et al., 1988). Behaviors include group violence, theft of property under $50,
theft of property over $50, shoplifting, and damage to school property. Participation in a
group fight (involving one group or gang against another) was also treated as a separate
measure of violence. RESULTS

Characteristics of the Student Sample

The results reported here are based on the combined sample of students surveyed at all
waves. The wave-by-wave characteristics are shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Characteristics of Students1 - All Waves

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Gender

Male

51.1

50.7

50.4

50.4

51.1

48.5

48.2

49.1

Female

48.9

49.3

49.6

49.6

48.9

51.5

51.8

50.9

Race/Ethnicity

White

51.1

51.5

50.4

52.1

54.6

58.6

60.2

62.8

Afr-Amer.

29.8

25.9

29.1

28.6

26.7

25.3

22.9

21.0

Hispanic

10.8

9.8

10.8

10.7

10.7

11.5

8.7

10.6

Other

8.4

12.9

8.8

8.7

7.2

7.4

6.7

5.6

Wave 1 Grade

Fifth

34.4

35.4

33.6

33.2

35.9

30.5

30.1

31.0

Sixth

65.6

64.6

66.4

66.8

64.1

69.5

69.9

69.0

Intact Family

Yes

63.8

59.9

59.1

60.0

60.6

62.4

61.3

61.7

No

36.2

40.1

40.9

40.0

39.4

37.6

38.7

38.3

Area

Urban

41.0

38.9

39.2

38.0

36.0

29.9

28.8

27.1

Suburban

35.7

36.6

35.8

36.8

37.4

41.5

40.4

41.6

Rural

23.2

24.5

25.0

25.2

26.5

28.5

30.8

31.4

Group

D.A.R.E

54.2

51.6

53.8

53.2

53.1

53.0

52.4

52.2

Control

45.8

48.4

46.2

46.8

46.9

47.0

47.6

47.8

1Figures are percentages

Approximately two-thirds of the students were in sixth grade at the time of wave 1 data
collection (with the remainder m fifth grade). Roughly 6-m-10 students indicated that they
were living with both parents in the same household at all waves. Slightly more than half
(52%) were exposed to D.A.R.E. m the spring of 199Q, while the remaking students were part
of the control group. Attrition over the six years was most noticeable among the urban and
African-American samples.

Analysis Strategy

We employed a random-effects ordinal regression model that allowed us to examine the
relationship between D.A.R.E. and individual-level outcomes while controlling for random
effects. We used the MIXOR and MIXREG programs, developed at the University of Illinois at
Chicago by Donald Hedeker and his colleagues. The program uses maximum marginal likelihood
solution and is applicable to both probit and logistic response functions (see Hedeker
& Gibbons, 1993; Hedeker. Gibbons, k Davis. 1991). Maximum marginal likelihood
regression was used within the framework of multi-level analysis. Each substantive model
included an indicator for whether the student had received D.A.R.E., plus a set of
binary-coded control variables that included race/ethnicity, gender, family structure
(intact vs. non-intact), and metropolitan status (urban, suburban, or rural).

Merging Waves. Data from the seven post-test surveys were merged. The analysis strategy
involved a level and trend comparison of the D.A.R.E. and control groups across all
post-test waves. Cases were sorted by student identification number so that there would be
up to 7 observations per student, with each observation representing a different wave of
post-test data.

Before adding each wave to the composite data set, a "Time" variable was
created, with all of the observations for a particular wave receiving the same Time value.
After merging the seven post-test waves, the Time variable was recoded so that wave 2 was
Time 0, wave 3 was Time 1, and so on up to wave 8, or Time 6. The Time variable was the
basis for determining the existence of significant changes m attitudes or drug usage over
time, and of controlling for this trend in the comparison of D.A.R.E. group and contro)
group responses. The basic model for all attitude measures, and for the delinquency index,
can be simply expressed as...

Y=b0+b1Time+b2D.A.R.E.+b3(D.A.R.E)*Time)+demographic area covariates

...where Y is the scale mean, b, is the wave 2 or Time 0 mean, controlling for the

demographic and area covariates, b, is the rate of change per wave or year, b, is the
effect of D.A.R.E. on the wave 2 or Time 0 mean, and b, is the effect of D.A.R.E. on the
rate of change per wave or year. D.A.R.E. is equal to 0 or 1, where 0 = control group and
1= D.A.R.E. group. When D.A.R.E. is 0, all terms in the equation containing D.A.R.E.
become 0. For analyses where the dependent variable was some type of alcohol and total
substance use, a binary variable for high school years (grades 9 through 12) was added and
interacted with Time in the same manner as the D.A.R.E. variable. The high school variable
was added to control for the dramatic increases in drug usage during those years.

In order to test for differential effects on female, African-American, and Hispanic
students, these demographic covariates were interacted with D.A.R.E. and added to a second
model. The area covariates were interacted with D.A.R.E. in a third model to test for main
effect (b2) differences in rural, urban, and suburban areas. Because of potential problems
with multiple interaction terms, these subgroup interaction effects were, for the most
part, only estimated in models that did not control for cumulative exposure to
supplemental drug education (discussed below).

Exposure to Supplemental Drug Education

At each wave, beginning with wave 3 (one year after exposure to D.A.R.E.), a survey of
the "most knowledgeable" local school teacher was conducted to determine the
number of hours of additional drug education that students received at their current
schools: the number of hours per week was multiplied by the number of weeks of drug
education. The cumulative supplemental drug education variable was computed by adding the
number of hours at that wave to the number of hours at each preceding wave. To correct for
skewness, these figures were then grouped into 5 dosage levels at intervals of 36
cumulative hours, with the exception that the highest level included all students with
more than 144 cumulative hours. In separate models, this variable was also interacted with
D.A.R.E. to estimate the effect of D.A.R.E. plus supplemental drug education in relation
to the effect of supplemental drug education only."11

Recoding

Several attitudinal and drug use scales were skewed, and therefore necessitated
recoding prior to the regression analysis. The Delinquency Index and Peer Resistance
scales were recoded into 3-point scales (1-3) with roughly equal numbers of cases in each
group. Four-point scales were created for Perceived Benefits of Alcohol and Cigarettes,
General Attitude Toward Drugs, and Self Esteem Again, the groups were of similar size.

Clustering and Random Variance

A variable representing the 36 original schools was retained for the purpose of
estimating the effect of students being "nested" within particular schools at
the time of exposure or non-exposure to D.A.R.E. (See Hedger 8c Gibbons, 1993; Murray 8c
Hannan, 1990 for a detailed discussion of this issue). It was expected that this

"clustering" effect would have eroded over time, and that the principal
violation o f the assumption of constant variance would be subject-specific rather than
school-specific. The results of regression analysis at specific time points largely
confirmed this expectation. The other time points and all other scales and usage
measurements had intraa-cluster correlations below .05, and most were well below that
level."12

Because of this, student identification numbers became the basis for bi-level analysis.
With continuous outcome measures, regressor effects were estimated while controlling for
the effect of subject-level variance in the constant term and over time."13 The random effects were
statistically significant in all models. Hence, controlling for subject-level variance
differences across waves was an important analytic contribution to all models used to
estimate program effects.

Effects on Hypothesized Mediating Variables

We tested the hypothesis that D.A.R.E. would have a sustained effect on the variables
that are assumed to mediate the relationship between drug education and drug use, namely,
students attitudes, beliefs, and social skills pertaining to drug use. On the whole,
the results did not support this hypothesis (see Table 3). When controlling for changes in
these variables over time and for changes in cumulative exposure to supplemental drug
education, only one significant D.A.R.E. effect remained. Specifically, students who
participated in D.A.R.E. were more likely than students in the to report awareness of
media efforts to make beer appear attractive. Even here, the D.A.R.E. interaction with
Time (.01*, not shown) was significant in the opposite direction, suggesting that the
sophistication of the Control group would eventually catch up to the D.A.R.E. group. A11
other D.A.R.E. effects were small and nonsignificant.

Although not posited as a mediating variable, we also examined the impact of D.A.R.E.
on violence and delinquency prevention. Our Delinquency Index, which measures incidents of
theft, vandalism, and/or participation in group violence, showed change over time in the
desired direction, but not as a result of D.A.R.E. A separate analysis of individual and
group violence revealed no D.A.R.E. effects. Previous evidence that African-American
students reported less group violence after D.A.R.E was no longer statistically
significant.

In addition, we examined the hypothesis that D.A.R.E. would be able to improve academic
performance. Self-reported grades, on a scale of 1 ("below D") to 8
("mostly As") were used to measure academic performance. Although the trend was
favorable, the overall results did not support this hypothesis. In the face of a
significant drop in grades over time (.07 per wave), the D.A.R.E. effect was positive (.09
per wave), but was only significantly higher for rural students (.29*).

A test of the booster hypothesis revealed that exposure to supplemental drug education
appears to have been largely counterproductive: each additional 36 hours of cumulative
drug education accounted for significantly greater negative attitudes toward police, more
positive attitudes toward drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, and more delinquency (see Table
3). The only favorable outcome was that students with more supplemental drug
education reported greater awareness of attempted media influences on drug use.

These findings transform the "booster" hypothesis into a question of whether
D.A.R.E. is able to neutralize the potentially harmful effects of other follow-up
programs. The analysis of D.A.R.E.s interaction with supplemental drug education
suggests that, in fact, the core program does have this effect (see Table 4). The
interaction model separates the joint effects of "D.A.R.E. and supplemental drug
education" From the independent cumulative effect of "supplemental drug
education" alone. The result is that the positive and negative coefficients,
respectively, tend to cancel each other out. The Perceived Benefits of Alcohol index, for
example, is higher by .0 8 for each dosage level o f supplemental drug education without
D.A.R.E., but only .01 higher (.08** minus .07*) for students who participated in D.A.R.E.
Thus, the combined effect of D.A.R.E. and supplemental drug education is about the same as
for students who received no drug education at all.

D.A.R.E. also appears to have differential subgroup effects. Curiously, D.A.R.E. has
been less effective in communicating the costs associated with alcohol and cigarette use
to African-American participants, yet more effective in helping this group recognize media
attempts to promote beer and cigarettes. Hispanic D.A.R.E. graduates had a significantly
lower delinquency score than the reference group. D.A.R.E. appears to have had the desired
effect of enhancing self-esteem and ones perceived ability to resist peer pressure
in urban and rural areas, while appearing to have had negligible or counterproductive
effects in suburban areas. Suburban D.A.R.E. graduates also had a significantly higher
delinquency score than non-D.A.R.E. suburban students.

Effects on Drug Use

We tested the hypothesis that D.A.R.E. would have a sustained preventive effect on drug
use behaviors. All analyses of drug use activity had to control for the reality of
increased usage over time, as well as for dramatic shifts in level and rate of increase
during the high school years (Grades 9-12). Students moving into and through the high
school years provided the most powerful explanation for the increases in drug use
beginning at wave 5, or what was grade 9 for most students. As noted earlier, two
composite Alcohol Use Indices were constructed to measure the use of four types of alcohol
in the past 30 days and during the subjects lifetime. In addition, two composite
Total Drug Use Indices were developed to measure usage of 11 types of drugs and alcohol in
the past 30 days and during the subjects lifetime.

The results provide no support for the drug prevention hypothesis (see Table 5). After
controlling for the effect of the high school years (Grades 9-12) and supplemental drug
education, we found that D.A.R.E. had no significant impact on any of the four primary
drug use scales.

That is, students who participated in D.A.R.E. v ere no different from students in the
control group with regard to their recent and lifetime use of drugs and alcohol.

Table 5

Main Effects of D.A.R.E. and Supplemental

Drug Education (SDE) on Drug Use1

Outcome Scales

Adjusted Mean Wave 2

Slope (Time)

D.A.R.E.

SDE

30 Day Alcohol Use

0.33

.02

.07

.03**

Lifetime Alcohol Use

1.07

.13**

.11

.09**

30 Day Total Drug Use

0.34

.03

.06

.04**

Lifetime Total Drug Use

1.51

.22**

.15

.15**

1Regression Analysis Controls for Gender (Female), African-American, Hispanic, Intact
Family, Rural and Suburban schools, High School Grades, High School Grades By Time, and
D.A.R.E. By Time

* p < .05* ** p < .01

Level 2 Observations = 1767 for most analyses

The adverse effects of supplemental drug education were apparent once again, as
cumulative exposure to these activities is associated with significantly higher levels of
composite drug use. The apparent neutralizing effect of D.A.R.E. is again evident. As
shown in Table 6, students whose supplemental drug education was preceded by D.A.R.E. were
less 1iely to use drugs than students whose exposure to high dosages of drug education did
not include D.A.R.E; However, the reader should be cautioned that the result of combining
D.A.R.E and supplemental drug education is to return students to the level of drug use
that would be expected without any drug education. In sum, D.A.R.E. alone has no main
effect on drug use, supplemental programs appear to have adverse effects, and together,
they have no effect.

Table 6

D.A.R.E.-by-Supplemental Drug Education (SDE)

Interaction Effects on Drug Use1

Outcome Scales

Adjusted Mean Wave 2

D.A.R.E.

SDE

D.A.R.E. and SDE

30 Day Alcohol Use

0.34

.05

.05**

-.04

Lifetime Alcohol Use

1.09

.07

.14**

-.10**

30 Day Total Use

0.36

.04

.07**

-.06**

Lifetime Total Use

1.55

.07

.25**

-.22**

1Regression Analysis Controls for Time, Gender (Female), African-American, Hispanic,
Intact Family, Rural and Suburban schools, High School Grades, High School Grades By Time,
and D.A.R.E. By Time

* p < .05 ** p < .01

Level 2 Observations = 1254 for most analyses

There were few differences in D.A.R.E. impact on drug use across different
communities. The only significant subgroup effect occurred with suburban D.A.R.E.
students. As shown m Table 7, suburban students who participated in D.A.R.E. reported
significantly higher rates of drug use on all four composite indices than suburban
students who did not participate in the program. Controlling for cumulative exposure to
supplemental drug education, however, reduced the probability value to marginally
significant (p <. 10) for three of the four measures, leaving untouched the apparent
adverse effect on the Lifetime Total Drug Use index. Also, we should emphasize that the
effect sizes are small. Suburban participation in D.A.R.E. is associated with an increased
level of drug use o f 3 to 5 percentage points on average, depending on the type of drug.

Table 7

D.A.R.E.-by-Area Interaction Effects on Drug Use1

Outcome Scales

Adjusted Mean Wave 2

D.A.R.E. and Urban

D.A.R.E. and Rural

D.A.R.E. and Suburban

30 Day Alcohol Use

0.45

.01

-.03

.09*

Lifetime Alcohol Use

1.25

.09

-.04

.18*

30 Day Total Drug Use

0.48

-.01

-.05

.09*

Lifetime Total Drug Use

1.82

.06

-.17

.28*

1Regression Analysis Controls for Time, D.A.R.E. By Time, Gender (Female),
African-American, Hispanic, Intact Family, Rural and Suburban schools, High School Grades,
and High School Grades By Time

* p < .05 ** p < .01

Level 2 Observations = 1767 for most analyses

To rule out the possibility that D.A.R.E. might be having beneficial effects on
specific types of drugs or alcohol (e.g. cigarette smoking), but not on composite
indicators, we conducted a series of statistical tests on individual drug use items. Given
the distribution of responses, these items were appropriate for treatment as dichotomous
variables, and hence were subjected to multi-level logistic regression using the MIXOR
program (Hedeker and Gibbons 1993). As shown in Table 8, the results are consistent with
the previous analyses and provide no support for the hypothesis that D.A.R.E. v auld have
a sustained preventive impact on specific types of drug use. Controlling for the powerful
effect of the high school years (Grades 9 through 12), supplemental drug education was
associated with significantly higher usage likelihoods. The net effect of interaction with
D.A.R.E. produced odds ratios close to 1.00 (i.e. no different from the Control group) for
all ten measures, and only three of these D.A.R.E. interactions differed significantly
from the effect of supplemental drug education alone.

1Logistic Regression Analysis Controls for Time, Gender (Female), African-American,
Hispanic, Intact Family, Rural and Suburban schools, High School Grades By Time, and
D.A.R.E. By Time. Numbers are odds ratios.

2Interaction of D.A.R.E. with Time is
positive and statistically significant.

3Interaction of High School Grades with Time is positive and statistically significant.

* p < 05 ** p < 01

Level 2 Observations = 1254 for most analyses

Finally, we tested the hypothesis that D.A.R.E. could delay the onset of drinking
alcohol  measures believed to be important as students reached high school. The
study measured the age at which students first "got drunk" and started having
"at least one drink at least once a month." Students in the Control group first
got drunk and started drinking regularly between the ages of 14 and 15. The effect of
D.A.R.E. on these two measures was not statistically significant. These small changes were
in the positive direction for delaying the onset of getting drunk (.11) and in the
negative direction for delaying regular driving (-.05).

We believe the findings from this study are especially important given the centrality
of D.A.R.E. to the national drug control policies of the United States and dozens of other
countries. These results are also noteworthy because of the paucity of controlled
longitudinal studies that can answer the most fundamental question  Can this popular
school-based program prevent drug use at the stage in adolescent development when drugs
become available and are widely used, namely, during the high school years? Unfortunately,
the answer to this question is ?4o." Specifically, the main finding is that
levels of drug use (using a variety of measures and analyses) did not differ as a function
of whether students participated in D.A.R.E. or did not. This outcome confirms the results
of previous controlled evaluations, and goes further to provide an extended test of the
D.A.R.E. hypothesis. Across many settings and research projects, D.A.R.E. has been unable
to show consistent preventive effects on drug use, and the observed effects have been
small in size and short-lived.

We can only speculate about the reasons for not funding larger and more persistent
effects from this program. First, there may be some degree of theory failure with respect
to curriculum content or instructional methods. Ennett and her colleagues (1994) argue
that the D.A.R.E. curriculum uses less interactive methods (e.g. peer discussions) than
programs that have been shown to be more effective in preventing drug use. Hansen (1997)
argues that the components of the curriculum should be revisited because "D.A.R.E. is
either targeting inappropriate mediating processes or insufficiently impacting appropriate
mediating constructs." Based on his empirical analysis, Hansen argues that several
mediating variables should be given more attention because of their established ability to
impact substance use onset, including the subjects personal commitment to avoid drug
use, erroneous perceptions about the prevalence and acceptability of drug use, and the
belief that drug use would be incongruent with ones values and lifestyle. Other
mediating processes, such as building social skills, may even have an adverse effect on
drug use according to Hansen, although other studies have not found this to be the case.

In the present study, we found that D.A.R.E. was able to have both immediate and
short-term effects (up to two years) on several mediating variables (e.g. resistance
skills, attitudes about drugs), but nearly all of these effects dissipated with the
passage of time and did not survive into the critical high school years. Unfortunately,
the absence of good booster programs creates a "Catch 22" for the elementary
school D.A.R.E. program, as researchers attempt to link mediating variables to drug use.
In fifth and sixth grades, the base rates for drug use are generally too low to detect
program effects, but by the time drug use levels reach measurable variability (2 to 3
years later), the likelihood of sustained effects from the original program has been
dramatically reduced in the absence of sound reinforcement programs.

D.A.R.E. advocates argue that the null findings from this research provide evidence
that more D.A.R.E. programming (not less) is needed at the junior high and high school
levels to reinforce the lessons of the not-so-effective core program. Whether police
officers can be effective with older students who show considerably less respect for
authority figures is uncertain. Thus, there is a compelling need to evaluate these
D.A.R.E. and other booster programs prior to widespread implementation. Unfortunately, the
practice of school-based drug education at these higher grade levels is dismal, which may
account for some unusual findings in this study. While D.A.R.E. by itself yielded very few
long-term effects on either mediating perceptual variables or drug use, it appears to
negate the potentially counterproductive effects of subsequent drug education programs.
Students who were exposed to higher cumulative levels of supplemental drug education
 but not to D.A.R.E.-scored significantly worse with regard to attitudes and beliefs
about drugs, peer resistance skills, and most importantly, drug use behaviors. Exposure to
D.A.R.E. seems to inoculate students against these adverse effects and keep them at the
level of the "No Drug Education Control Group.""14 Future research should attempt to replicate this
inoculation effect and, more generally, determine the extent to which distinguishable drug
education programs interact to influence patterns of drug use. With respect to
post-D.A.R.E. drug education, several competing hypotheses need closer scrutiny: (1)
supplemental programs are causing more drug use; (2) more drug use is causing schools to
introduce more drug education; or (3) these variables are spuriously related.

One of the limitations of the current study is that it focuses on the effectiveness of
a D.A.R.E. curriculum, which has since been modified by D.A.R.E. America. Changes
introduced in 1994 were arguably small, but additional research is needed to determine
whether the new curriculum and the accompanying modifications to officer training were
sufficient to enhance the effectiveness of the elementary school program

The present study found that D.A.R.E. had the most beneficial effects on urban children
and the fewest beneficial effects on suburban children. In fact, there is some evidence of
a possible boomerang effect among suburban kids. That is, suburban students who were
D.A.R.E. graduates scored higher than suburban students in the Control group on all four
major drug use measures. Because schools were carefully matched and then randomly assigned
within the same suburban communities, we are doubtful that these effects can be explained
by factors such as sampling or other design issues. Furthermore, because this set of
findings was replicated in a separate study (to be published), with completely different
samples o f students, v e believe it should not be ignored in future research.

Members of our research team conducted classroom observations in several schools in an
attempt to understand and explain the observed differences between urban and suburban
schools. In this preliminary study, blind observers looked for possible differences in
instructor teaching styles, student responses, and school environments. Although we did
not find striking differences in classroom instruction or teacher-student interaction,
other differences were noteworthy: (1) At urban schools, D.A.R.E. officers tended to spend
more time on the school grounds and typically interacted more with students outside the
classroom, including the playground setting. In contrast, D.A.R.E. officers in suburban
schools were quick to move on to another school. In essence, students in urban schools had
more opportunity to "connect" or "bond" with the D.A.R.E. officer than
did their suburban counterparts, and to see them as part of the school environment; and
(2) At urban schools, D.A.R.E. was typically offered to students at the 5th-grade level,
while in suburban schools, it was offered at the 6th-grade level. Given the
well-documented differences in student academic achievement and teaching resources
{favoring the suburban schools), one would expect to see the standardized D.A.R.E.
curriculum administered at the 5th-grade level in the suburbs. Under the current
arrangement, our informal interviews suggest that suburban students are less impressed
with the D.A.R.E. of5cers, perhaps because students expectations for teaching
performance and their own academic progress are substantially higher than in the typical
inner-city school. Other unconfirmed hypotheses offered to explain these differences
include: (1) more negative attitudes about police in the suburbs, which would undermine
the instructors credibility; (2) a greater need to rebel against authority figures
and the "Say No to Drugs" message; and/or (3) less knowledge about drugs and
therefore, a greater fascination with drug paraphernalia and drug information introduced
by the D.A.R.E. officer.

If these urban-suburban differences are replicated in future research, one policy
implication is that a standardized curriculum and training package may need to be modified
or tailored in response to community differences. While standardization is one of
D.A.R.E.s greatest strengths, too much uniformity may limit its effectiveness. Given
the stark reality of very large differences between communities m their cultural/ethnic
composition, income levels, family problems, and quality of local education, the idea that
"one size fits all" may need to be re-examined in this particular Geld. At this
point in time, the best available evidence suggests that D.A.R.E. may be having different
effects in different communities, and may need to be adjusted accordingly.

Collectively, these findings suggest that it may be time for us to "return to the
drawing board" and reexamine our drug prevention policies and practices. Our society,
searching for a silver bullet or a panacea to the drug problem, has expected far too much
from a single program. Compounding the problem, parents, educators, and police officers
have confused program popularity with program effectiveness. Drug prevention experts, both
researchers and practitioners, have worked with the National Institute of Drug Abuse to
outline many of the key components of effective prevention strategies (see Sloboda and
David 1997). The next step is for concerned communities, armed with the best available
knowledge about effective program practices, to develop their own prevention plans with
full recognition that there are no simple solutions to complex social problems.

Bauman, IC 1985. "A Study of Cigarette Smoking Behavior Among Youth: Adolescent
Questionnaire." Chapel Hill: Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of
Public Health, University of North Carolina.

Sloboda, Z., and S. L. David. 1997. Preventing Drug Use Among Children and Adolescents:
A Research-Based Guide. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Drug Abuse. NIH Publication No.
97-4212.

Tobler, N. 1986. ?Beta-analysis of 143 Adolescent Drug Prevention Programs:
Quantitative Outcome Results of Program Participants Compared to a Control or Comparison
Group." The Journal of Drug Issues 16: 537-567.

1. The accusation of "contempt for
results" stems fiom various claims by researchers and reporters who say they have
been subjected to harassment, slander, and professional ostracism for presenting
unfavorable findings abut the effectiveness of D.A.R.E. (see Glass, 1997, 1998).

2. This legislative requirement seems
directly responsive to a major Department of Education study which recommended that
"The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) program at the national
level should consider supporting and encouraging more use of approaches that the research
has found to be effective and less use of approaches that do not have strong evidence of
effectiveness" (Silvia and Thorne 1997, E-27).

3. A table of evaluation studies is attached
as supporting documentation.

4.Wysong et al. (1994) was a notable
exception, suggesting a possible "boomerang effect with regard to use of
hallucinogens. Also, Donnermeyer (1998) was not specifically evaluating D.A.R.E. but some
portion of this sample was exposed to the program.

5. In one evaluation, the sample was
supplemented via "random replacement" after high attrition between pretest and
posttest (Nyre et al. 1990).

6. Students m the eleventh grade were asked
to recall their exposure to drug education classes over the previous six years.

7. After three years, we reported that the
presence of D.A.R.E. was associated with favorable changes on the Total Drug Use and Total
Alcohol Use Indices after controlling for students exposure to subsequent drug
education. A note of caution: This was our first attempt to measure post-D.A.R.E. drug
education, and we used a dichotomous indicator of educational activity in the current year
only. After four years, a multi-year composite index was constructed to capture cumulative
exposure to drug education, and the D.A.R.E. effects reported the previous year were not
replicated under these conditions.

8. Aggregate family income, by school, was
determined by the percent of students in that school who were eligible for the Bee or
reduced price lunch program of the United States Department of Agriculture.

9. We requested and received a Certificate of
Confidentiality from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which provides broad
legal protections against any efforts to breach the confidentiality of our records.

10. The only other longitudinal study to
track students for more than two years discovered that subjects in the control group
received drug education as part of their health science curriculum in the first year
(Clayton et al. 1991b).

11. Models including these variables could
not make use of the full data set: supplemental drug education had not been gathered at
wave 2.

12. Only two attitude scales, Attitudes
toward Police and Attitude Towards Specific Drugs, had intra-cluster correlations as high
as .055 and .052 at Time 0 (wave 2).

13. The sole exception was for estimates of
the age at which the student had "at least one drink at least once a month." The
random effect over time for this outcome measure was too small to be estimated.

14. For most students, we are fairly
certain that their supplemental drug education did not include a D.A.R.E. curriculum or
any of the prototype programs that are being recommended as alternatives to D.A.R.E.
Rather, most of these activities are local efforts that, in our opinion, are not well
conceived (i.e. based on scientific research) or well implemented.